In January 2003, two women in New York City, Kathryn Blume and Sharron Bower, thought to organize readings of the ancient Greek play by Aristophanes, Lysistrata, as a protest against the imminent preemptive war on Iraq. Originally conceived as a local event, however, over the course of a few weeks, word of the Lysistrata Project quickly gained momentum and became a worldwide happening for peace. On March 3, 2003 nearly 1,100 simultaneous productions of Lysistrata were performed in 59 countries around the globe.